Dreams about dad, curving door, tunnel, breakfast? How much to buy the place…. Embarrassing but now I’m him….
Dreams about my car – the old one, actually, tires stolen, then wheels stolen, then spares placed on, tow companies, tire companies… when I woke up I remembered I had AAA.
Last night I climbed into bed early. I snuggled in with one of my favourite Terry Pratchett books and read myself into snooziness and drifted off into sleep, enjoying the feeling of freshly sheets. It’s springy enough that it was time to pull the flannels off the bed and put crisp, cool sheets on, freshly re-washed to clean away the months of storage…. I slumbered swiftly, waking only at 3am, and 5am and again at 6am…
In any case, somewhere in there I dreamt. I think Heather and I were touring somewhere in Pittsburgh (the house we were staying in seemed like Pittsburgh) or Philadelphia (the neighbourhood we were in seemed like Philly) – we were on the edge of a bad neighbourhood and I’d been watching for parking spots to open up in front of the house so I could run around the corner and grab my car from its currently questionable surroundings….
Two hours after initially parking, a spot DID open up and I ran around the corner – only to find my Saturn (interesting that this actually was my OLD Saturn, not my current one) up on blocks, wheels stolen! FUCK! A frenzy of phone calls ensues… my cell phone won’t cooperate, no-one’s open, I can’t get signal… I peek around the corner to check on my car again but someone’s smashed in a window… more frenetic phone calls and no-one wants to tow me for under $500 and no-one’s tire shop will help me unless a friend recommends me… another peek shows that the nefarious fiends have placed donuts on all four wheels, obviously with the intent to finally just go ahead and take the whole car! Soon it’s been wheeled away and I see it vanishing into a garage down the street…
I wake up feeling tense and panicked and stupid. I mean, I’ve GOT AAA, I should’ve called AAA! Sigh.
Looking back on it, actually I wasn’t walking away during those “look away” moments in the dream, I was waking up and lamenting the dream, then falling back asleep, horrified to be still IN the dream…
Finally, after the 5am break or so, the scenery shifted and I was at a coffeeshop / bookstore of some sort in Louisville with my Dad. In the dream he’d made a recovery of some sort after a horrible brush with death (this is usually the context in which he shows up – not having died, but having recovered after having fought off the cancer) – we were eating breakfast in this beautiful old stone and wood coffeeshop and I was kind of embarrassed that my Dad was doing the Dad thing, engaging everyone in conversation and making friends in that way he had – asking about the business, about the building. Later, we depart (I remember walking out through the front door and remarking on how beautiful it was, curved to fit into the rounded, turret-like front of the building) and walk through a tunnel which somehow is within walking distance of my parents’ house. We talk about nothing very much for a bit and then he wonders aloud how much I think that coffeehouse was worth…
“It’s a nice place, maybe we could move there, I never wanted to end things in that old house”
“It is pretty terrible isn’t it, I never wanted you to die there.”
“No, it’s not where I thought I’d end up.”
Sigh. I’m holding my Dad’s arm and crying and I wake up that way. Different arm, pillow’s wet, phone’s buzzing. It’s raining outside and I hate the fact that my mom’s STILL in that house.
Enough real Life. We’re off to see the faeries at the Maryland Faerie Festival. It’s a dreary day and I’m sure it’s going to take its toll on the presence of all the whimsical folk that usually make it their business to come out to this event. I’m still kind of muddled from all the dreams and I’m not really shaking loose. The voice of the GPS is harsh and John Jorgenson’s gypsy jazz isn’t even getting me energized just yet. Gotta wiggle. Gotta wiggle. Come on rob, wiggle!
